China media: Doomsday cult wants to slay 'red dragon' Communist Party

BEIJING -- China has launched a crackdown on a religious group it says is a cult that has called for a "decisive battle" to slay the "Big Red Dragon" of the Communist Party and spread doomsday rumors, state media said Friday.

In recent weeks, hundreds of members of the "Almighty God" group have clashed with police, sometimes outside government buildings, in central Henan, northern Shaanxi and southwestern Gansu provinces, according to photos on popular microblogs.

The group has "incited followers to launch a decisive battle with the 'Big Red Dragon' to make the 'Red Dragon' extinct and to establish the reign of the kingdom of the 'Almighty God,'" the provincial Shaanxi Daily said on its website.

It added that the sect's followers have been distributing leaflets saying that the world will end in 2012.

Sect leaders executedChina's Communist Party brooks no challenge to its rule and is obsessed with social stability.

It has particularly taken aim at groups it considers to be cults, which have multiplied across the country in recent years.